Sweet Annie

by Cheryl St. John

  Luke had spoken to the doctor that morning and had been delivered the crushing news. Annie didn't want to come home with him. He wanted to stomp into her room and confront her, but the doctor had warned him about upsetting her.

  So he'd returned to the livery, taken out his fear and frustration over the searing forge, on the glowing iron, pounding... pounding.

  Luke didn't know what to say to Annie's father. "Thank you," he returned, knowing it was a lame sentiment.

  "I'm sure she just needs some time," Eldon said.

  "Yes." But why didn't she need him? Did she blame him? Did everyone blame him? "I thought I could take care of her," he said.

  "You did."

  Luke shook his head. "No, I didn't. The wolves. She would have needed to know how to use a gun, and I never showed her." He stared at the mountains in the distance. "She thought the horses were more important than her own safety."

  "Maybe she just needs some time," Eldon said again, as though trying to convince them both.

  Luke wanted to believe it. In the days and nights that followed he tried to believe it, tried to understand why she needed time away from him, why her heart didn't ache for him like his did for her.

  After several nights of sitting in front of the fire, looking at the pins and needles sticking out of the arm of her chair, touching her clothing and her hairbrush while his guts wrenched, staring at the empty cradle until the wee hours of the morning, he packed his clothing, strung the horses on a tether rope, and moved to the livery where there were fewer memories.

  Even here the nights were endless, filled with re­grets and worries and dry-eyed mourning.

  On Thursday morning, he went to see her and found her on the porch in the sunlight, a shawl draping her shoulders. She sat in her wheelchair and the sight slammed him like a punch in the chest. Had something gone wrong that he hadn't been told about? Why hadn't someone let him know?

  "Annie?" he said. "What is it? Was your leg hurt? Something broken that I didn't know about?"

  Her head raised. She'd been studying a book in her lap. Her gray-green eyes flickered over him and shut­tered quickly.

  "You know what's wrong with me."

  "No, no, I don't. Tell me."

  "Besides losing your son, you mean?"

  Her words disturbed him. "He was our son, An­nie."

  Pain flickered across her delicate features. She com­posed them. "Yes. You know the extent of my inju­ries. What are you asking?"

  "I guess I'm asking why you're sitting in this damned chair!"

  "This is where I belong," she said flatly. She in­dicated the chair, the porch, the house.

  "Have you been walking?" he dared, starting with another approach.

  "No."

  "You probably need to exercise your legs."

  "It doesn't matter."

  He studied the delicate slope of her nose, her ivory cheeks, the ringlets at her temple, and craved touching her. He missed her so badly he could taste her and smell her just by thinking. "I've missed you."

  She turned away from him and gazed at the horizon. She would be right to blame him. She was more un­happy now than she'd been before they'd started see­ing each other. He loved her more than anything, but he'd loved her selfishly, trying to make her more like other people. If he'd left her alone, she wouldn't have to suffer like this now. He was the one who had con­vinced her to get out of that chair and take on the world.

  And because she had—because she'd trusted him— he'd taken her from her safe environment and protec­tive family and let this happen to her. They would all be justified in hating him. He hated himself.

  "I'm sorry, Annie," he said softly. "I'll do what­ever I can to make it up to you. I'll leave you alone if that's what makes you happy."

  She nodded, and he took that as his signal to leave her alone. Maybe she was better off here. Maybe he'd been fooling them both into thinking he could be ev­erything she needed. Obviously, he hadn't been.

  Mildred opened the screen door and appeared with a tray holding a teapot and cups. Seeing Luke, she drew up short, then collected herself and moved past him. "Here's your tea, darling," she said to her daughter. "Are you comfortable here in the sun?"

  Annie nodded, and Mildred set down the tray and poured a cup full, handing it to Annie.

  Annie accepted it. Both of them behaved as though Luke wasn't there. With an ache in his heart and his throat, he backed away from the scene, leaving Mil­dred to tend to her daughter's comfort, leaving the Sweetwaters to care for his wife.

  Mounting the horse he'd left at the gate, he rode away, once again the outsider.

  No longer would he have a wife to come home to at night. There would be no son to teach to ride, no children to inherit all he was working for. But work he did, because it was all he had left.

  "Do you want to hold her, Annie?" Diana asked. Her sister-in-law approached her with the pink flannel-wrapped bundle. Annie'd been told of Elizabeth's birth the month before, and had asked about Diana's health and recovery. Since Annie hadn't been out of the house for weeks, she hadn't been to Burdell's home or to church for the baby's christening. This was the first time she'd seen their new daughter.

  Her niece had wispy dark hair and a delicately round face. She held her tiny hands right up by her face, and squinted her eyes open. Annie wondered what color her baby's hair had been, whether his eyes would have been blue or green. She could have asked Luke about his hair. "No, I don't want to hold her," she said, her heart pounding too fast at the thought.

  Diana held Elizabeth right down beside Annie, where she could smell the infant's milky essence. She felt a painful twinge in her breasts. The child was a miracle, a miniature person, perfect in every way, fair lashes, translucent fingernails, wrinkly knuckles and shell-like ears.

  Annie looked up and met Diana's compassionate gaze. Tears of sympathy swam in her sister-in-law's dark eyes. "I am so sorry," she whispered. "We took flowers to your little John's grave. It's in a beautiful spot. Someone had planted forget-me-nots."

  Luke, Annie thought. She hadn't even been brave enough to go see the grave.

  "You can have more babies," Diana said.

  Annie shook her head and looked away, out the par-lor window where Burdell played with Will on the lawn. "No."

  Two months hadn't been enough time to allow her­self to think of that. Two years or two decades wouldn't be enough time.

  Charmaine, too, tried to talk to her, tried to pull her from her protective cocoon, but Annie remained with­drawn and silent. She watched through the window-panes as the family gathered in the newly green side yard and set up the croquet set for the first time that year. Life just went on, she thought dismally. Without her.

  After dinner, Burdell ignored her protests and pushed her out onto the porch. He sat on a wicker chair across from her.

  "How long are you going to feel sorry for your­self?" he asked.

  She ignored his taunt and stared at the hazy moun­tain peaks.

  “The only happy person around here is Mother, be­cause she has her invalid daughter back," he said. "What does that tell you?"

  Annie glared at him. "I should have listened to her from the beginning and this wouldn't have happened."

  "You think nobody ever lost a baby before?" he asked.

  She shook her head against his words.

  "You think only helpless crippled people have ac­cidents?"

  She shrugged, avoided his face.

  "What happened to you could have happened to anybody."

  "No. I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough. I was slow and clumsy and I let him down. He deserves someone with two good legs." She glanced across the yard and caught sight of her cousin running after a wooden ball. "He deserves someone who can be a real help and not a burden—someone like Char­maine."

  Burdy was silent for a moment. “He loves you.''

  "Well, I lost his baby, didn't I? How sad for him that he loves me! He deserves better. He gave me ev­eryth
ing, love, kindness, hope...he's so good and so pure and wonderful that it hurts." She brought her fist to her heart in proof. "And the first thing he ever trusted me with I lost for him."

  "Not the first thing," Burdell denied.

  "What do you mean?"

  "First, he trusted you with his heart."

  Tears blurred her vision. Luke had given her his heart. Completely. Unreservedly. He'd loved her more than she had ever dreamed of being loved. "I just can't bear to face him," she whispered, tears thick in her throat. "I'm so ashamed that I let him down."

  "We're to blame for this," her brother said angrily. "Me as much as anyone. I treated you like Mother did for so long that I convinced myself you were help­less. I know I have a hard head, but I saw how happy he made you, how happy and self-confident you were doing things for yourself. I've been wrong. Now I'm sure. This isn't you—not sitting here like an invalid. You are a capable, talented woman. What happened to you and your baby could have happened to any­one—could have happened to Diana in the same sit­uation."

  "But it didn't. She wasn't out trying to be a farrier's wife."

  "But if she loved a farrier, you can bet she would have. She's just trying to be a banker's wife."

  Annie thought long and hard about that statement. If Diana had loved a rancher or a miner or a logger, she undoubtedly would have thrown her whole self into that kind of life—just as Annie had. "Do you believe that Burdy? Do you believe it was an accident that could have happened to anyone?"

  "I do. And I think Luke's blaming himself as much as you blame yourself right now. He told our father he accepted the responsibility for taking you away from your safe environment and letting this happen."

  "Oh, pooh!" Annie said. "Isn't that just like him to take the blame himself in order to spare me?''

  "He's hurting, too, Annie. Think about that."

  "I have. And I've decided he's better off without me."

  "Right," he said. "Let him hurt alone. Let him grieve for both of you. Poor Annie," he said, getting up. "Poor, helpless Annie." And with that he walked down the stairs and strode across the yard.

  His words of mocking pity stung. Annie considered all of Burdell's words in the days that followed. Alone in her room one afternoon, she took a good clear look at her situation. She had been feeling sorry for herself, taking the blame for something that couldn't have been prevented, and in doing so she was throwing away the best thing that had ever happened to her. How could she have let herself fall into this river of self-centered despondency? Luke had lost a son, and she had walked out on him.

  Let him hurt alone. Let him grieve for both of you. He had buried their child alone. Had reverently wrapped the tiny lifeless infant in a soft pretty blanket sewn by Annie's hands, dug a grave, said a prayer and cried all by himself.

  Annie slid from her chair to her knees beside the window seat and sobbed out her grief and shame and regret. When had she become this spineless traitor who let her husband bear their burdens alone?

  Every day after that she got out of her chair and exercised her aching body, strengthening her legs and her resolve. When Charmaine came to call, Annie sur­prised her by asking her to drive her to the livery.

  Charmaine clapped her gloved hands cheerfully. "Oh, you've come to your senses! Are you ready? Do you want your chair?"

  "No. Just hold my hand."

  Charmaine assisted her into the wagon, climbed up beside her, and guided the horse through the streets. The ring of the hammer met their ears before they ever saw the building. Charmaine stopped the wagon in front of the open double doors. She jumped down and helped Annie to the ground. “Want me to walk with you?''

  "No. Wait here, please." Annie gathered her cour­age and her hem and limped into the shaded building, following the hammering back into the humid depths, toward the forge.

  He stood silhouetted against the blaze of the fire, turned without seeing her and held long tongs which gripped a horseshoe into the flames. Reaching up, he pumped the bellows, the muscles across his bare shoulders rippling and shining.

  Annie drank in the sight of him. He was leaner than he'd been before last winter, before she'd lost the baby and deserted him. He did everything alone now, with no one to cook for him—to do his laundry—to rub his shoulders at night.

  Turning back, he placed the horseshoe against the anvil and pounded. Annie resisted covering her ears, instead let the punishing ring fill her senses. After sev­eral blows, Luke inspected his work, then plunged the shoe into a bucket of cold water.

  Hissing steam rose around his torso.

  Annie let her hand fall from her breast, and the movement must have caught his eye, because he looked up. He seemed startled to see her there, finally setting down the shoe and the tongs and coming for­ward. "Annie?"

  Chapter Seventeen

  He grabbed a rag and wiped his hands and face.

  "Hello, Luke."

  "What are you doing here?"

  "I came to see you." Now that she was here, she didn't know quite what to say. He was covered with soot and perspiration, but he looked so good and fa­miliar, she wanted to grab him and hold him. "How have you been?"

  "All right."

  "And the house?" This felt silly. I'm sorry! I've been so wrong! "How are things there?"

  "I haven't been there for a while. Several weeks actually."

  She hadn't known that. "You've been staying where—here?''

  He wiped sweat from his hair, making it stand up in ebony spikes. "It's easier for me."

  "Oh. Are you—do you want to live there again?" With me, was what she meant. Can we start over?

  "I think things are probably better this way," he said. "I was away too much. I can't erase anything that happened before...but I can make sure you're safe now. I want to help take care of you...send money."

  "I don't need your money." I need you!

  He stiffened. "I'll send it anyhow. You're my re­sponsibility."

  "Is that all I am now? A responsibility?" What about wife? What about lover?

  "No."

  They stared at each other. The heat from the forge had begun to seep through her clothing.

  "It's because of me that you were hurt," he said finally. "Because I was so determined to make things work my way, in my time. I was a fool. I pushed you too hard."

  Pushed her too hard? Or expected her to be some­one she couldn't be? Did he think he was a fool for ever wanting her in the first place? "So, you're sorry," she said. "Sorry you married me."

  She turned and limped from the room, wishing she could ran gracefully, wishing she didn't humiliate her­self at every mm.

  "Annie!"

  She kept going, her heart aching with his rejection. Charmaine met her outside the doors. "What's wrong? What did he say? What happened?''

  "Nothing," she said, wanting to cry, but not want­ing to do it here. “Just help me up and get me away from here."

  "Okay." Her cousin obeyed as quickly as she could, assisting Annie and shaking the reins over the horses' backs.

  Annie didn't look back.

  Nothing was the same as it had been before Luke. No longer was she satisfied to be the doted-upon daughter. Nor was anything the same as it had been since Luke—or since they'd lost their hopes. She couldn't go back to either life, so what was left?

  Charmaine helped her down from the wagon and Annie made her own way into the house, through the doorway and to her room. Burdell had told her she was feeling sorry for herself, and she'd taken that to heart and tried to help herself. But now Luke seemed to think she was better off here than with him—how could he think that? Didn't he know? Didn't he care?

  She sat abruptly on the window seat, glanced aside and observed the row of angelic-faced porcelain dolls. Here she was back in the bosom of her family, back in this room, back in her chair like a pretty, useless, lifeless doll!

  Angry at Luke, angry at life and at her helplessness, she lashed out and swept a doll from its resting place and smashed
it against the floorboards. Another fol­lowed and another, until only two remained, staring at her as though they knew how crazy and helpless she really was. Turning, she kicked the lifeless broken bodies across the floor.

  "Annie!" Her mother appeared in the doorway, Charmaine on her heels.

  "Go away!" Annie flung herself on the bed and cried tears of frustration and anger. "Leave me alone!"

  Charmaine backed out of the room, but Mildred came to stand beside her bed. "I'll leave you alone after I've had a word with you."

  "Oh, Mother, please, what could you say that you haven't said already?"

  "Maybe that you need to pick yourself up and de­cide what you want out of life." She stuffed a scented handkerchief into Annie's fist. "You were happy be­fore, Annie. Don't let anything stop you from getting what you want. Even if it's him." Her lip curled a little at the pronoun.

  Annie wiped her eyes and nose. "Are you telling me to go after my husband?"

  Her back was straight and her eyes didn't quite meet Annie's, but Mildred spoke the words all the same. "I'm telling you to live your dream."

  The door closed behind her a moment later.

  Annie curled on her side and thought about her dream.

  After Charmaine had gone, after Annie heard the sound of the stove lids clanking in the kitchen, she pulled herself together and went to her writing desk. She pulled out a piece of paper and uncorked the ink. She hadn't given up. Not by a long shot.

  Dear Luke,

  You taught me courage when I was afraid. You showed me I could do things I only dreamed of. You gave me confidence to stand up and walk in front of people without shame. Which one of us is the cripple now? Who was hiding behind their fear today? You are cordially invited to my birth­day celebration. I think you know the day—and the place.

  With love,

  Annie

  She found Glenda wiping the kitchen floor. "Glenda, will you please do me a favor?"

  "Of course. Are you all right?"

  “I am now. Will you please deliver this to my hus­band at the livery?"